Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said he would surely sign a bill that banned transgender treatments and surgeries for minors.
In an interview that premiered Wednesday by the Daily Caller, DeSantis said he is “very much opposed to chemical castration of minors.”
In the video below, the conversation about transgender surgeries for young people begins at the 12:33 mark:
“I mean, honestly, I didn’t even know that this existed, until like a few years ago, so that would be something that I would sign for sure,” he asserted.
Earlier in the interview, DeSantis spoke about his decision to sign into law the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, protecting girls’ and women’s sports from biological males who “identify” as females.
The governor explained his reasoning:
Well, look, it’s discrimination against our women athletes to force them to participate, against male athletes. I mean we had Selina [Soule] from Connecticut came in. She missed New England regionals for track by two places and both the people that beat her were biological males. And, so, if she had had a level playing field, she would have not only advanced a regional, she would have won that track meet. And, so, my view – I mean I have two daughters. I want them to have the opportunity to do things and follow their dreams, but it needs to be a level playing field, and it needs to be fair, and it should all be based on biology, not based on ideology.
Asked by interviewer Mary Margaret Olohan his views on why some Republican governors are hesitant to sign legislation protecting women’s sports, DeSantis replied, “I think it’s just corporate pressure.”
The governor elaborated:
I think corporations have gotten very woke, they tend to genuflect for whatever the most recent left-wing cause is, because they just don’t like getting the blowback, they don’t want to be the subject of a social media mob or things like that. And, so, I think that they’ve taken that posture, but you can’t let them. Like some woke corporation, you’re going to turn over the reins of government to them and let them set the policy?
“That ain’t happening in Florida, and so we we’re not going to be deterred by that,” he asserted, adding the NCAA had announced in April it would not hold its events in states that pass laws protecting women’s sports.
“And I told the speaker who’s here I said, man, we’ve got to get this done, like we cannot be bullied,” the governor said. “And, so, we did and now they’ve basically said, ‘Well, we’ll hold events.’”
“And here’s the thing: if you don’t hold the event fine, I mean, I’m not gonna ruin opportunities for millions of young girls in Florida, just to hold an event,” DeSantis added. “I mean that’s an easy decision for me to make.”